


Settling in

by Oneinamaximillion



Series: Iterum [5]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, POV Third Person, a little loopy au, manor y/n, technically all the egos are present, the egos all get to live in a nice house and nothing hurts and everything is fine, which is significant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25209397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oneinamaximillion/pseuds/Oneinamaximillion
Summary: Yancy thinks he's moved from one prison to another.
Series: Iterum [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783990
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	Settling in

Yancy has never known anything outside of Happy trails Penitentiary. And he means that literally. Sure, in theory, he lived a life outside of here, knows that he’s in here for killing his parents, but all that is muted. Not real.

The closest thing to real that he’s ever seen was the prisoner who came through a little while back. They were the most handsome and/or beautiful person he had ever met, and he had felt almost compelled to help them escape. And he didn’t let just anyone escape, you know! But this person, they were somethin’ special.

The third sunday of the month is coming up. He knows it’s a long shot, but he’s kinda hoping they’ll come and visit.

He doesn’t see the day arrive.

When he wakes up, he is no longer in a prison. He is, instead, in a very nice bedroom, decorated to his tastes. It looks comfortable and lived in despite the fact that he’s never seen this place before in his life.

He pokes around the room a little. Maybe he got transferred without noticing, somehow? Maybe someone’s playing a trick on him? But all the things are too nice for prison, even if they’re exactly what he would have gotten for himself.

He steps outside into a hallway lined with doors. Names are neatly printed on all of them. Strange names. Who the hell calls their kid Bim Trimmer? He turns around and, sure enough, there’s Yancy on a neat little sign. No numbers. He looks down at himself and is mildly concerned that he is in sweats and a plain tee instead of his usual prison garb.

He walks down the hall, looking for any name that looks even slightly familiar. Heapass, or Tiny, or Bam Bam. But no, he doesn’t recognize any of them. Instead, the names seem to get more bizarre. Seriously. Ed Edgar? Yandere? The Host? That last one isn’t even a name. And isn’t Google a search engine? What’s going on here?

He doesn’t want to knock on any doors in case the people inside aren’t friendly, so he heads instead down the hall into what turns into a common room. Through another door is a kitchen, and he is feeling pretty hungry, so he heads in.

He looks around and grabs a bag of chips to snack on while he searches the fridge for some kind of fruit. He pulls out a tupperware with a large warning on the lid. He almost ignores it before his brain properly registers what it says.

FOR BIM ONLY  
CONTAINS HUMAN  
DO NOT EAT

He nearly drops the thing in his hurry to shove it back into the fridge. Appetite gone, he puts the chips back and returns to the common room. It is here that he spots the first person he’s seen since he’s woken up.

He’s dressed like an adventurer, with a whip of all things attached to his belt. Yancy clears his throat to get his attention. The strange man turns with a blindingly bright smile.

“Oh! Hello! I was starting to think I was all alone in this strange place! I’m Illinois, but you can call me Illy if you like,” He says the last part with a wink.

“Yancy. Do yous happen to have any ideas how we got here?” Illinois shrugs.

“I’m afraid not. I fell asleep under the stars, and then POOF! I wake up here. Stranger things have happened to me, I suppose.” Illinois gestures to the door Yancy had just come out of. “Anything good in there? I’m starving.”

“Uh, yeah,” Yancy replies. “Just don’ eat from the tupperware in the fridge.”

“Will do,” Illinois responds, walking by.

Yancy, with nothing better to do, sits down on one of the couches. There’s a very nice tv set up opposite him, but he doesn’t want to settle down and relax just yet.

“Aren’t yous worried about where we are or what’s happening to us?” he asks. Illinois returns with a sandwich.

“Of course. But I can hardly figure out a mystery of this scale on an empty stomach. Oh, sorry, did you want one?”

“I’m good.”

Just then, several new people walk into the room.

“I don’t care where we are, man, I’m telling you I saw a sick skate park out my window! This place is paradise, dude!” The man speaking has a pair of sunglasses over his eyes, but they tilt in such a way that Yancy manages to get a glimpse of what looks like glowing orange. He is speaking to an annoyed looking man in a blue shirt with a white G.

“It doesn’t m-m-matter what you think, Bing. I cannot achieve my objectives in this place.” Yancy realizes that this guy may not in fact be human like he assumed, because his whole body glitches when he stutters. Some kind of android?

More people continue to walk into the common room. A schoolgirl casually wielding a katana. A man in a suit and glasses. Some guy in a weird superhero getup. A few venture into the kitchen, but soon return. There is a moment of silence after it seems like all of them are present, but a loud noise interrupts it. There is a man haphazardly crawling through the window. He hits his head on it, nearly knocking his cheap plastic crown off, before falling the rest of the way in. He looks up, and Yancy notes the peanut butter dripping down his face.

“I’m King of the Squirrels,” the King of the Squirrels announces proudly.

The room goes quiet again. Not actually quiet. Yancy can hear the guy with bandages over his eyes keeping up a constant drone of noise. He strains to listen to what he’s saying.

“Dark and Wilford drop in, looking confused, before a strange entity makes itself known to the group of egos-”

Two men appear suddenly in the center of the room, one with a curl of black smoke, the other in an explosion of pink glitter. The people closest to them flinch back. Like bandage-guy said, they both look confused. Before anyone can say anything, a strange entity makes itself known.

It hurts Yancy’s eyes to look at them too long. They are beautiful and/or handsome, yes, but there is something unnatural about them that settles in his mind and twists his thoughts, so he hurriedly looks away.

“Friends!” The new being exclaims excitedly. “I’m sure you’re all confused, and that’s understandable. Some of you already know me, some of you don’t. Regardless, I am directly or indirectly responsible for the existence of all of you.” There’s an uproar of noise. The entity waits it out.

"I know what you're thinking," they pause and giggle. “Literally. But Y/N-” at this Yancy flinches, because they just said their name, he’s sure of it, but his brains refuse to process the syllables into anything resembling sense, “-you say, I remember my life! I have friends and family, a job and a home! And to that I say: Do you? Do you really?” They pause and look around the room. “That’s right. Some of your memories are clear, but most of them are muted. Because you aren’t people the way people are people! And that’s alright. Just because you weren’t created in reality doesn’t mean you aren’t real!”

“Why are we here?” someone asks. Y/N--even thinking the name makes Yancy’s stomach twist--shoots them a pair of finger guns.

“Excellent question, Yan! And I have an excellent answer!” They spread their hands out, palms up. “I have no idea what to do with most of you! With the exception of Dark and Wil, most of you no longer have relevance to the story, if you were ever relevant in the first place. Which means you would simply be sleeping forever in the void. Or I would have to erase you. Boo! I worked hard to create you! I’m not letting that go to waste! So I’ve brought you here. You can live out your stories in this nifty little pocket dimension. You’ll find if you walk past the front gate, you can go wherever you want. So, Yan, you can still attend school and see your senpai. Ed, Bim, you can still go to work. Silver, you can defend your city. All the things you’re used to doing! Except now, you have a new home to return to.” They suddenly turn serious, and the room gets noticeably colder. “There are just a few rules: no fighting, and no interfering with my narratives. Trust me, tampered timelines are quite unpleasant to experience.” They brighten up again.

The man who Yancy could only assume was Dark was staring openly at the Entity. The Entity turned to him with a fond smile.

“Yes, yes, I know you have lots of questions, Dark. Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this when it’s showtime, so that way it doesn’t affect your performance. And yes-” they directed the rest of their statement to the crowd, “-if you know me, I am in fact who you think I am.” And Yancy realized with a start that they were the same person he had freed from prison.

_Indeed_ , a voice muttered in his head. _I’m sorry that I never visited you, but I’d say this is almost better, hm?_ Yancy flinches at hearing the voice and, judging from some of the other’s, he wasn’t alone.

The Entity turned to the sparkly pink man next, who was playing with a revolver.

“Hey, Wil, if you’re not busy, I would love another interview sometime this week!” Wil looked up and grinned.

“Oh, that’d be delightful! One step closer to a free iced cream, hmm?” Yancy has no idea what accent this guy was speaking with. “What is it now? Eight?”

“Two, actually,” the Entity said indulgently. “But I’m sure it’s eight at some point in the timeline. Well!” They clapped their hands. “I must be off. Please, relax. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you around--even if you don’t see me!” And with the sound of shattering glass they disappeared. 

Yancy blinked, shook his head. Someone had just been here, right? Someone bad. Someone to fear. Right?

_Wrong._ A voice in his head told him. And he could trust it, because it was his own. _That was a friend that just left. A good friend. Trustworthy. You’d do anything for them._

“Anything,” He hears someone say out loud. One of the others.

_You remember, don’t you?_

He doesn’t. Does he?

The voice - his voice - reminds him. Yes, he does remember. Of course.

He sees his life laid out before him, like a story.

But of course, this isn’t a story.

Right?

_Right._

**Author's Note:**

> it is, in fact, a story, in several ways.


End file.
